Time and the Preserver
by Meriah
Summary: Dialga voices if it is real or an illusion, how mankind has measured and interpreted it, and how its role as the Preserver grants a unique interaction for events from birth to death. It also discusses the paradox of governing time while being time.


_I am what has always been but came to be._

_I am the celebrated and the despised. _

_I am the venerated and the feared. _

_I am the absent and the present._

_I am real and an illusion._

_I am the invisible presence; my sibling the tangible._

_I am Dialga. _

Humans call me an illusion, an entity generated to measure the passing of events. This is false. I am real in a dimension apart from others. In my realm exists only me, harbored among proactive energy like a fetus in the womb.

Some call me a god. I suppose the title is suitable, although it is illogical to me. Perhaps the mortals are gods, for they can shape their destinies while I am imprisoned to this fate. They can make life – the very essence of all. I lack this ability; it feels supernatural to me. Yet most of all, they die.

Perhaps I sound bizarre considering mortals lust for immortality. They have prayed for it, searched for it, become intoxicated in the idea like an aged wine. Yet to me eternity is a curse. I will go on as the bystander of all things – peace and war, abundance and famine, success and failure. I cannot interfere as it would trigger imbalance in the continuum... as I had learned in Alamos Town...

This destiny was not my own. It was forced upon me, and there is a tragic loss in that. I am not the Creator nor the Destroyer; I am the Preserver along with Palkia. However, my sibling embodies active, tangible energy; mine is the opposite.

Why would mortals even want to live forever? They are deluded by the countdown of years, somehow thinking everything is limited. I can assure it is not, but maybe that is only experienced by me. I would find liberation in my death as my energy is transferred. Oh, but that will never occur, for how could energy transfer without me? I am the measurement in that situation; I am the transfer.

That brings me onto a new topic. From the dawn of civilization, people have attempted to measure me. They began with studying the passing of the sun. To the most ancient, I was the rays of sun which passed through Stonehenge's avenues. I was the solstices, the equinoxes, the seasons. I was a guideline of when the harvest season would arrive; I was what roughly determined when a child would be born. I was relevant and always there.

I was and am life and death and all events in between.

I am the fleeting weeks or months of first-time love when two adolescents hope they will last. I am there when their lips meet, when their laughter is only second to their passion. I am what marks them as they celebrate their monthly anniversaries, when they count down to prom. Yet I also am the cold presence of an ended relationship. I am scorned as girls read through their once joyful diary entries, and their tears now write the following pages. I am the plague which has ensnared a boy; he looks upon his father and states he has lost all he ever loved.

I am the milestones of life. Photographs and videos capture the passing of me. They show a toddler's first steps and words. Later they capture a child on the playground, the start of elementary school, or the beginning of friendships. Then they grace adolescence – cliques at dances and coffee shops, snapshots for the Internet. They memorialize eventual weddings, parties, cookouts...

I am found in springtime fertility, which comes to all as a source of renewal. I am the progression of a foal into a horse or tadpole into a frog. I am the counting of numbers when children play hide-and-seek. I am the regeneration of cells, the progression of years in medicine, and the triumph of an ill person surviving another day. I am in the sense of accomplishment for one's devotion to a project. I am the hope of a family as their child attends college or a parent earns a promotion. I am the essence of retirement when one can finally return to innocence through play. Most of all, I am the soul of a new generation – the promise of sustainability.

Yet I am also the negative energies of being. I can be witnessed in the decaying of a plant, the erosion of water upon stone, the breathlessness of an accident. I am the aura of Detroit's vacant streets as a once proud city waits for an improved economy, or what haunts family-owned businesses as they await their final days until corporations take over. I am in the company of a homeless man as he wonders how to survive the approaching winter. I am the curse before an animal is euthanized. I am the element of fear as a tumor continues to spread. Above all else, I am the plague of those at a funeral as they ponder when their final breath will be.

I am the cycle of life and death.

The Egyptians knew me as the sunrise and sunset. I was what yielded death and rebirth in their solar god. And yet... did people of antiquity otherwise portray me as amorphous? Was I only viewable as the striking clocks which utilized bells to call communities to prayer?

Perhaps I was given a face at the Tower of Winds in Athens? Sundials were employed, and the casting of shadow upon rock may have come to symbolize me.

I am still these things, and yet now I am more. My whisper is the ticking of a grandfather clock. My movements are the hands on a watch, and my very form can be found as the numbers on digital clocks.

Yet people... they have deluded themselves with the thought of understanding me, but they are ignorant of me. What am I? I am the paradox: The Governor of Time and also Time itself. That is all I am.

Time was bestowed upon me for its magic to be restrained. We define the other while being facets of one source. It is a paradox – for how can two be one? But I am and I have always been.

Or have I not always existed? Again is the paradox, for I was crafted from the Creator, whose own formation may have been the first event in time... or maybe it was me, born alongside my sibling as a counterbalance to the other (we are opposites – Space can be seen and altered, whereas Time is only experienced and constant). I do feel I am greater than a minute to an hour or a year to a decade even if they are me. And I am certain that I am not the man-made gadgets which attempt to measure me.

I came before the days of mankind, life in the oceans, even the formation of continents. I watched as Earth was made: Ten billion years after the Big Bang, during which there was limited activity, remaining clouds of gas and rock clashed at tremendous speed. This triggered nuclear reactions that now are found within the core and heat the planet. What would become a magnificent sphere of blue, green and brown was once nothing more than iron, silicates and traces of radioactive elements.

There are still so many questions left unanswered... and they will always be left unanswered. Questions I have about myself, about the nature of the universe.

However...

If one wishes to comprehend who or what I am, the illusions of dimension and individualism must be discarded. It is because otherwise a mortal will never entirely understand himself. He will always have the opinion of being a separate entity, a single soul with unique thoughts. Yet look around... I am there. See me now; do not think we are separated by realms for perhaps it is the body which is the true illusion. Remember Time is something which is embodied in everything. Remember mortals and I are the same and are one. We are all threads of a single fabric, pieces in and of the Absolute Reality.

* * *

**Ending Note: **I realize there were heavy elements in this piece, some of which violate what is taught by Western religions. Please do not think I was insulting the Abrahamic faiths; this is simply a work of fiction. Point made, I was aiming for a Hindu feel blended with science and philosophy. Also with that said I ask you do not feel offended by Dialga acting as Vishnu (the Preserver in Hinduism). For obvious reasons there are many elements in the Pokémon series which are parallel to those found in Eastern beliefs.

Also, my intent here was to write a Pokémon fanfic without the obviousness of it falling under the fandom. I wanted to craft something which transcends the normal barriers. Thus, I used words such as "animal" rather than "pokémon" and mentioned real locations like Detroit. I hope it was effective!

Finally, I referred to Dialga as an "it" in the summary on purpose. I felt assigning it a sex would take away its primordial feel by making it feel closer to our dimension.

Please review.


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